The Surge (3 page)

Tomás’s 4×4 bouncing along the slick railroad ties was like an amusement park ride for the occupants — minus the amusement.

“How much farther?” Mark shouted from the jump seat in back, where he was getting the brunt of the bounce.

“About half a mile,” John shouted back.

“How far have we gone?”

“About a half a mile.”

“You gotta be kidding me! I’m getting pounded back here. I need a helmet!”

John turned. Mark was cradling the video camera like it was an infant. “You might want to let go of that camera and hang on.”

“This camera is worth more than my life.”

“It doesn’t even belong to you,” Cindy pointed out. “The station owns it.”

“Yeah, but if I break it, I
will
own it,” Mark said. “And a busted camera won’t do me much good considering that in a couple hours, when I don’t show up at the station for work, I’ll be unemployed.”

“So will I,” Cindy said.

Cindy and Mark had both known when they climbed into John Masters’s truck and headed toward Hurricane Emily that there was a good chance they would not make it back to Saint Petersburg by morning. Cindy had accepted John’s invitation because, after spending half the previous day watching him work, she was curious about him. Mark had tagged along because he was curious about the hurricane. They had both gotten what they wanted. Cindy had interviewed John during the terrifying ride into the storm, and she’d learned enough about him to know that he would make a very interesting subject of a documentary. She was thinking of calling it
The Man Who Got Struck by Lightning
. Mark had shot some amazing footage of Emily’s fury, but the only way to save his job was to get that footage on the air. Without power there was no way to do this.

“It was a lousy television station anyway,” Cindy said. “Look on the bright side. We won’t have to put up with Richard Krupp anymore.”

Richard Krupp was the station’s lead anchorman and the most popular television personality in Saint Petersburg.

“It’ll be nice not to have to deal with that gasbag anymore,” Mark admitted. “But how am I going to make a living?”

“With me,” Cindy said. “We’ll go freelance.”

“Without a camera?”

“I have some money put away. I’ll get you a camera. In the meantime hand the station’s camera up front. We’ll hang on to it while you get a grip.”

Mark happily gave Cindy and John the expensive camera to guard for a while.

John looked over at Tomás, who was hunched over the steering wheel, trying to see through the watery windshield. He’d offered to take over the driving again, but Tomás shook his head just as he had every time John had suggested it.

Three minutes later they hit something lying across the track. The truck went airborne, rolled counterclockwise, slammed back onto the track on the driver’s side, then slid for thirty feet between the rails, with the air bags deployed, before coming to a teetering stop.

“Is everyone okay?” John asked.

“I’m good,” Cindy said.

“Okay,” Tomás said.

“Soiled underpants,” Mark said.

“Too much information,” Cindy said.

“How’s the camera?” Mark asked.

“It’s jammed between Tomás’s shoulder and my ear,” Cindy answered. “But I think it’s fine.”

“Put it in park, Tomás,” John said. “Don’t turn the engine off. We may not be able to get it started again.”

“That seems moot since the truck is lying on its side,” Mark said.

“With some luck we might be able to right it,” John said. “I’m going to try to climb out through the window. Nobody move. I don’t want to flip it over on the roof, on top of me, or over the trestle.”

“As in bridge?” Mark asked.

“I can’t see very clearly through the windshield, but it looks like this section of track is ten to twelve feet above a swamp. If we go into the drink, we’ll be on foot.”

“Providing we don’t drown,” Mark added.

“Exactly.”

“Just so you know, I can’t swim.”

“That’s good to know.”

John slipped his headlamp on and opened the passenger window. When he stuck his head outside, the wind nearly pulled him out of the cab.

Chase put the battery back into the satellite phone, then turned it on.

“No go,” he said.

“Rice time.” Rashawn took the phone and put it into a Ziploc bag filled with uncooked rice. “You’ll be talking to your dad before you know it.”

“I hope it works,” Nicole said.

“I’ve never seen this fail.” Rashawn started unloading the other goodies from the large box she’d brought from the bunkhouse kitchen.

Chase looked at the electric heater, then at Momma Rossi. “Maybe we should switch the heater off to conserve power.”

“Not until you dry off,” Momma Rossi said. “How did you and Rashawn get so wet?”

Chase told her about the broken window.

“Did you top the generator off?” Nicole asked.

“I would have, but there wasn’t any gas. The cans were all empty.” Chase walked over to the heater and put his cold hands in front of it.

“You didn’t tell me that,” Rashawn said, joining him in front of the heater.

“I thought I’d let everyone know at once.” Chase looked at Nicole. “I searched all over the workshop. Is there anyplace else your dad might store it?”

Nicole shook her head. “There are three cans next to the generator. He fills them in town when they’re empty.”

“There
were
three cans,” Chase said. “And they’re all empty. Unfortunately, the generator is just about empty too. I’d guess we have about an hour before the lights go off. Maybe less.”

“Not good,” Nicole said, glancing at Pet. “This barn is dark as a tomb, even during the day.” She pointed at a small window to the side of the ring. “That’s it for daylight. Dad’s been so busy with Pet and taking care of the farm, I guess he forgot to pick up gas.”

“You open that big door after sunup,” Rashawn said. “There’d be plenty of light.”

“The storm might not be over by sunrise,” Chase pointed out. “Which would mean no light, or at least not very much.”

“And if Pet saw an opening that big,” Nicole added, “she’d try to pull her leg off trying to get to it.”

“We have plenty of gas in the Shack and Shop,” Chase said.

The Shack was the fifth-wheel where Chase and his father lived. The Shop was his father’s tractor-trailer rig. It was filled with tools and building supplies. Tomás had a small apartment built into the front end of the Shop.

“You can’t go out in this,” Nicole said.

“It’s either that or we’ll be sitting here in the dark
listening
to an elephant being born,” Chase said.

“We have flashlights.”

“We have one flashlight and two headlamps,” Chase corrected. “Which aren’t going to do us much good if there’s a problem with the calf.”

“What about the four-wheeler?” Rashawn said.

“What about it?” Chase asked.

“I don’t know what the Shack and Shop is, or where it is, but we rode down here on a four-wheeler and it’s parked right outside the door we came through to get into the barn.”

Chase smiled.
Rashawn. Always thinking
. He had no desire to fight his way on foot to the Shop to get gas, especially in the dark.

“Is the tank full?” Nicole asked, looking as relieved as he felt.

“Yeah,” Chase answered. “Or pretty close to full.” One of his father’s many rules was that all gas tanks were to be kept full at all times for situations just like this. He had topped the four-wheeler’s tank off the previous morning before he’d picked up Nicole and driven her to the road to catch the school bus. “It has a five-gallon tank. We could siphon it into one of the cans and we’d have enough to keep us going for several hours.”

“Let’s get it inside,” Nicole said. “We can crack the big door open and pull it in.”

The big door was in fact big enough to drive a semitruck through. But the door wouldn’t budge, even with all four of them pushing and pulling on it.

“The wind’s too strong out there,” Chase said. “We’ll never get it open. I’ll have to use the small door.”

“The four-wheeler won’t fit through that door,” Nicole said.

“You’re right. But I can push it up to the door, and we have to siphon the gas out anyway.”

“I’ll get the hose and a can,” Rashawn said, hurrying off into the darkness toward the bunkhouse.

“That Rashawn’s a go-getter,” Momma Rossi said. “I like her.”

“So do I,” Nicole agreed.

“Where does she live?”

“Up the road a few miles. Her dad’s the refuge manager.”

“We need to turn the heater off,” Chase said. “And any lights we don’t absolutely need.”

Momma Rossi walked over and unplugged the heater. Nicole opened a panel on the wall and switched off everything except for a couple of spotlights over the ring.

A few minutes later, Rashawn returned with a watering hose, an empty gas can, and an armful of pillows and blankets.

“Don’t know about you, but I’m going to take a nap after we get the generator gassed up.”

“On the big ol’ hammock?” Chase asked, taking the gas can from her.

“Yep.”

“What are you two talking about?” Nicole asked.

Momma Rossi laughed. “I think they’re talking about the catch net for the fliers.”

“Fliers?” Rashawn said.

“The trapeze artists,” Nicole explained.

Chase took out his pocketknife, cut a length of hose, and walked over to the door with Nicole and Rashawn. “I’ll get the four-wheeler as close as I can, and we’ll figure out what to do from there. Ready?”

He turned the handle. The door banged open, nearly dislocating his arm. Water and debris flew through the opening.

“Watch out!”

Nicole and Rashawn ducked to either side. Chase dropped to his knees to give the wind a smaller target and peered outside with his headlamp. Shingles, broken furniture, and other house debris lined the outside walls like a four-foot snowdrift of garbage.

WPPs,
thought Chase.
We were lucky to get inside the barn when we did.

The four-wheeler was nowhere to be seen. Chase swore, but the word was lost in the wind. Perhaps more disturbing was the amount of water outside. The side of the barn looked like the bow of a ship slicing through flotsam and jetsam on a rough sea. He pulled his head back inside and struggled to close the door, but could barely move it. Nicole and Rashawn leapt to their feet to help him, and after what seemed like forever, they managed to shut the door, getting themselves drenched once again.

“What happened?” Nicole asked.

“The four-wheeler must be buried under debris,” Chase answered. “Or maybe it floated away. The balloon tires could have lifted it like a boat in the current.”

“What do you mean by the current?” Rashawn asked.

“There’s a lot of water out there. The surge. Flooding. Right now, the only thing keeping the water out of the barn — or most of the water anyway — is the debris. It’s formed a dam.”

“What are we going to do?” Nicole asked.

“I guess I’m going to have to make my way to the Shop after all.”

“I’ll go with you,” Nicole said.

“There’s no point in that. It won’t take two of us to bring back a can of gas.”

“What’s it like out there?” Rashawn asked.

“Not too bad,” Chase lied.

John Masters crawled on his stomach, playing out the steel cable from the power winch bolted to the front of Tomás’s truck, which was still precariously balanced on its side on the old railroad bridge. Cindy and Mark had crept ahead to the end of the trestle and were crouched behind an uprooted tree in a futile attempt to stay out of the vicious wind. The only person who was out of the wind was Tomás. He was behind the steering wheel, waiting for his partner to right the truck. Engines were not designed to operate sideways. Someone had to stay in the cab and play with the accelerator to keep the engine idling. John had once again offered to spell him from behind the wheel, and once again Tomás had refused, adding in Spanglish that he would be grateful if John could get the truck to tip onto the tracks rather than into the swamp.

John was doing his best. The water was rising quickly. It had almost reached the bottom of the ties. John hoped he had the cable angles figured correctly. He fished the hook under the second rail, attached it back onto the cable, then crawled back to the truck and spoke to Tomás through the smashed windshield.

“You ready, amigo?”

“Minute,” Tomás said. He pulled the last two photographs of his family off the dash and put them with the others in a Ziploc bag. “
Sí
. Ready.”

“When I get it righted, drive forward just enough to loosen the slack. I’ll spool the cable and jump in the cab.”

“Vaya con Dios,”
Tomás said.

“Gracias,”
John replied.

He started the winch.

“Are you sure the camera’s safe?” Mark asked.

“Strapped in like a toddler,” Cindy answered as she watched John’s headlamp bobbing around the tracks in the dark and the two truck headlights vertical rather than horizontal.

“You really think we can make a living going freelance?”

“You mean if we live through this storm?”

“Right.”

“Well, it won’t be easy, but I think we can make a living … eventually.”

“And you think John Masters is a worthy subject of a documentary?”

“Maybe,” Cindy said. “We’ll have to see how the story develops. You have to admit that it’s been pretty dramatic so far.”

“I’ve never been more scared in my life,” Mark said. “If that’s what you mean.”

“Me too,” Cindy admitted. “I don’t think I would have tagged along if I’d known how bad this hurricane was going
to be, yet John and Tomás don’t appear the least bit worried.”

“That’s because they are insane,” Mark said.

“You’ve got a point, but they have managed to keep us alive.”

“So far,” Mark said. “But if we don’t get out of here soon, we’ll be swimming to the highway. Did I mention that I can’t swim?”

“A few dozen times. Look!” Cindy said. “The headlights are horizontal.”

“Yeah,” Mark said. “But are they right side up?”

John Masters let out a sigh of relief as Tomás drove the truck forward to give him enough slack to unhook the cable. He spooled it up and climbed into the cab. Inside, Tomás was reattaching his family to the dash.